Nor is it an original Spring; Whatever it hath that is good and pleasant comes from an higher Head, and is communicated. But the communication remains not in this heart as in a dead receptacle, but creates the Soul where it is a living spring it self. The Lord shall satisfy thy Soul in drought, 1and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and as a spring of water whose waters fail not. After which it follows, Then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord, 2&c. So though the waters that are so pleasantly refreshing to holy Souls are given by Christ; yet he himself tells us,3 they shall be in him to whom they are given a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Whence also the Good man is said to be satisfied from himself; 4And the mouth of the righteous ⟨p. 49⟩5to be a well of life i. e. to others, much more must his heart be so to himself. Nor indeed can there be a vainer or more absurd design and expectation, than to aim immediately at delights and joys, without ever looking after that transforming, purifying, quickening communication from God, in which he is to be enjoyed; which is apparently the (most prejudicial and dangerous) mistake, the practical error (and so much the worse therefore) of many persons of much pretence to Religion, that dream and boast of nothing less than raptures and transports, having never yet known or felt what the work of regeneration or the new creature means. And having only got some notions of God and Christ, that tickle their fancies without ever changing their hearts, these go for divine enjoyments. Others somewhat awakened and convinced but not renewed, though they do not pretend already to have, yet do (from the same mistaken apprehension) as vainly seek and catch at joys and sweetnesses; while their unsanctified hearts do yet lie steeped in the gall of bitterness: And they wonder and complain, that they feel not in themselves the delights whereof they find Scripture sometimes make mention, while in the mean time they expect and snatch at them in that preposterous impossible way, as to abstract them from the things themselves, wherein the pleasure and delight lies. They would have delight without the delectable good, that must immediately afford and yield it; or without ⟨p. 50⟩foregoing the noisome evils that resist and hinder it;
Nor is it an original Spring; Whatever it hath that is good and pleasant comes from an higher Head, and is communicated. But the communication remains not in this heart as in a dead receptacle, but creates the Soul where it is a living spring it self. The Lord shall satisfie thy Soul in drought, 1and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and as a spring of water whose waters fail not. After which it follows, Then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord, 2&c. So though the waters that are so pleasantly refreshing to holy Souls are given by Christ; yet he himself tells us,3 they shall be in him to whom they are given a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Whence also the Good man is said to be satisfied from himself; 4And the mouth of the righteous ⟨p. 49⟩5to be a well of life i. e. to others, much more must his heart be so to himself. Nor indeed can there be a vainer or more absurd design and expectation, than to aim immediately at delights and joys, without ever looking after that transforming, purifying, quickening communication from God, in which he is to be enjoyed; which is apparently the (most prejudicial and dangerous) mistake, the practical error (and so much the worse therefore) of many persons of much pretence to Religion, that dream and boast of nothing less than raptures and transports, having never yet known or felt what the work of regeneration or the new creature means. And having only got some notions of God and Christ, that tickle their fancies without ever changing their hearts, these go for divine injoyments. Others somewhat awakened and convinced but not renewed, though they do not pretend already to have, yet do (from the same mistaken apprehension) as vainly seek and catch at joys and sweetnesses; while their unsanctified hearts do yet ly steept in the gall of bitterness: And they wonder and complain, that they feel not in themselves the delights whereof they find Scripture sometimes make mention, while in the mean time they expect and snatch at them in that preposterous impossible way, as to abstract them from the things themselves, wherein the pleasure and delight lies. They would have delight without the delectable good, that must immediately afford and yield it; or without ⟨p. 50⟩
- 1Isa. 58. 11.
- 2v. 14.
- 3Joh. 4. 14.
- 4Pro. 14. 14.
- 5ch. 10.
